Over the years birds and animals have been known cause billions of dollars in damage, maintenance, repairs, liability, and health risks each year. Birds of prey such as vultures are known to roost on communication and broadcast towers, as well as power and communication lines. Defecations by roosting vultures have been known to interfere with the operation of expensive equipment and create unsafe and unpleasant conditions for workers who climb the towers to service and install equipment. Furthermore, businesses and homeowners adjacent to vulture roosts can be adversely affected by vulture droppings and unpleasant odors.
Various types of deterrents have been applied over the years, such as noise making devices, chemicals, and visual deterrent objections.
However, using noisemakers and pyrotechnics are not desirable since they can be disruptive to neighboring businesses and homeowners and provide limited release.
Chemical deterrents are impractical because of the large perching areas, and would also interfere with operation and maintenance on the towers, and can be dangerous to workers as well as the neighboring public.
Other deterrents, such as visual objects, such as reflecting tape and balloons can be impractical to apply and would not be effective with different types of birds, and the like.
Research in has noted that suspending carcasses of real dead vultures proved to be a highly efficient method for controlling bird activity on or around the tested towers. Avery et al., Dispersing Vulture Roosts on Communication Towers, J. Raptor Res. 36(1), pages 45-50 2002
While shown to be effective, the securing and suspending of actual dead vulture carcasses from communication towers and other structure would not be practical in all applications and would not be a long-term solution. Suspending carcasses can also represent a bio-hazard, and in any even such carcasses rot and decay, and are not long lasting.
Also, in order to procure such carcasses in the quantities that are commercially feasible, large number of animals would necessarily be killed in order to provide the carcasses. Such treatment of live animals may be considered to be inhumane.
Thus, the need exists for solutions to the above problems with the prior art.